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Monday, August 08, 2016

A Five-Year Reading Challenge that Ended Almost Two Years Ago

In October of 2009, about seven months into my book blogging life, I came up with a plan to guide me read some fantastic books. I had just transitioned from reading 'everything' (or preferably pulp fiction) to literary fiction with focus on African literature. Realising how much I was missing, I set myself the target of reading 100 amazing books in five years. These books were to be exclusive of all other books I will read in the year. Thus, I can read other books but at the end of the five years I should have read these 100 books. I developed the list with vigour, with information from several sources (recommendations from friends and best books lists). This is the kind of challenge I cherish though I don't always complete challenges. However one challenging factor when it comes to challenges is book accessibility and it is because of this that I set the five-year target thinking that within that period the hurdle would have flattened out.

So I made a list of books (here and there). Slowly, I grazed through the list and slowly time went by. However, by October 2014, when the challenge ended my reading slumped and my blogging life with it. It was so bad that it carried into 2015 and then 2016 making it impossible to talk about the end of the challenge and my level of achievement. Within this five years (or seven years as of 2016), I had changed jobs five times and each job had taken something away from my blogging life as every job I had taken had been quite different requiring new learning and new adjustments.

Books Unread: Consequently, I have not been able to read 50 percent of the listed. In all, I read only 46 percent and of the 54 books not read I only have two on my unread bookshelf: The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood and One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The following are the listed books I could not read:

Anowaby Ama Atta Aidoo

A Dry White Season by Andre Brink

The Life and Times of Michael K by J. M. Coetzee

The Blood Knot by Athol Fugard

Bones by Chenjerai Hove

Living, Loving and Lying Awake at Night by Sindiwe Magona

House of Hunger by Dambudzo Marechera

Labyrinths by Christopher Okigbo

Song of Lawino by Okot P'Bitek

Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadwai

Third World Express by Mongane Serote

Butterfly Burning by Yvonne Vera

Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee

Osiris Rising by Ayi Kwei Armah

Tsoti by Athol Fugard

Toads for Supper by Chukwuemeka Ike

Ake: The Years of Childhood by Wole Soyinka

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Summertime by J. M. Coetzee

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Light in August by William Faulkner

Kim by Rudyard Kipling

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

Mason and Dixon by Thomas Pynchon

Vineland by Thomas Pynchon

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

Poker by Wittgenstein

Mistress by Wittgenstein

Tractatus Logico Philosophicus by Wittgenstein

Philosophical Investigations by Wittgenstein

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Moby-Dick by Hermes Melville

Ulysses by James Joyce

Carpenter's Gothic by William Gaddis

A Frolic of His Own by William Gaddis

Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maughan

Money by Martin Amis

London Fields by Martin Amis

The Information by Martin Amis

We Won't Budge by Manthia Diawara

Songs of Enchantment by Ben Okri

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Books Read: Though good books are difficult to come by, through benevolent friends and fate, I was able to read some really interesting titles listed below:

Even though the challenge is officially over, I will still look for some of the titles on the list to read; however, time has changed my taste and there are some books on this list I may not actively look for. I am happy that I undertook this challenge and sad that I could not make a deep dent into the list.

1 comment:

I can relate to the idea of wanting to accomplish specific reading goals, only to find that the goal, which was once exciting has become only burdensome and seemingly impossible to reach. Having held that many jobs over such a period of time is a very demanding situation. It's amazing that you've been able to keep up the reading that you have. And how great that you've found 46 great reads in all!